The mania
for heathland restoration that I started to document four years ago had a
variety of factors that enraged local communities, not least that the
first evidence that anything was going on was often the arrival of
insensitive contractors with heavy machinery, the terrifying noise that
their equipment made, and the devastating destruction that was left in
their wake (see
Heathland
MADNESS - the juggernaut of nature conservation (1)).

The proof
of this destruction is given in the eyewitness accounts and occasional
photographs in the reports of local and national newspapers – such as the
clear felling of trees, the clearance of shrubs like gorse and other
scrubby growth, and the major disturbance of the ground layer as it is
often scraped through, the latter giving little hope for the survival of
what wild nature could have been there before the clearance. A disturbing
aspect of this – the destruction of habitat for reptiles - has not made it
into the press, but has been the cause of distress amongst the online
communities of herpetologists.

Destroying reptile habitat

A thread
began in February last year on the Reptiles and Amphibians UK (RAUK)
e-forum about the destruction that “tidying up” on nature reserves caused
to reptile habitat (2). Photographs posted there show examples of the
heavy handed management: one looks more like a clearance in preparation
for road building rather than “nature conservation”; and another in Epping
Forest shows a clear-felled and scraped-through landscape, completely
exposing a hibernation site (hibernaculum) for adders and grass snakes.
This destruction was revisited in a second thread on RAUK last May when Al
Hyde, who had been observing heathland management in Surrey for many
years, noted that the management had been followed by a catastrophic drop
in the number of reptiles present, and in some cases complete extinction
of reptile populations (3).

A key theme
of the contributors to this second thread is the lack of specialist
knowledge and attention to reptiles given by the conservation industry, to
the point where Suzi added the telling point, albeit in ironic despair:”Will any of us be around when we are knee deep in nightjars and
thoughts turn to saving the adder? Will the big guys be telling us that
adders are a very threatened species and they know just how to save them.
It will involve building banks for hibernation, allowing areas of bracken
and birch trees....stop me if there is something here that rings bells!”

Armata had
pointed out, using photographs, how important the natural mulch layer
under gorse and copses of silver birch was as sites of hibernation for
reptiles, and thus had to be part of the heathland mosaic. “Hopefully
we can get past this 'Calluna monoculture syndrome'”, he said. Gemma
Fairchild of the Kent Reptile and Amphibian
Group
summed it up for many on the thread:“Some of my favourite haunts have been trashed beyond recognition by 'heathland
management'. I moan about small areas in Essex but some of the places I
know in Surrey are nothing but a tragedy, I can't even bring myself to
visit some areas now”

She could
have been talking about Ash Ranges, an MOD site between Ash and Pirbright in Surrey that has
received the full destructive force of the Surrey Heathland Project over
the last few winters (4). Notices of intent for winter working on the
Ranges always stress that large machinery will be used, and has the usual
fig leaf excuse for their effect (5) "Although the work may appear
drastic, it is necessary to maintain the open heath". So drastic in
fact that a press release from Natural England actually boasts about the
giant woodchip pile that has resulted from this winter's destruction (6):"A substantial
investment of Environmental Stewardship funds from Natural England, and a
massive effort by a team of contractors, has led to a major clearance of
invasive trees, mainly birch and pine, across a big part of Ash Ranges,
near Aldershot on the Surrey/Hampshire borders over the winter closure
period.The
resulting pile of wood chippings is estimated to have been in the range of
3,500 to 4,000 tonnes"

Al Hyde first mentioned the habitat destruction
and extinction of reptiles at Ash Ranges on the RAUK e-forum when he used
an ariel photograph to point out an area that used to have many adders,
grass snakes, common lizards and slow-worms, but had become a bleak desert
after clearance with no sightings of snakes and only two of common lizards
(3). He also marked on the same ariel view the position of hibernacula
that were destroyed during management. Al returned to the destruction on
Ash Ranges when he sought to take the issue of heathland management and
reptile persecution to a wider audience on the Wild About Britain website
(7). Al was right about the wider audience, as his post immediately brought in challenges to his
observations, the apologia-tendency for the conservation industry so often
seen amongst its groupies. Al could only respond with the evidence of his
eyes:“All [heathland sites] have healthy populations until management is
carried out. Dead reptiles are found during work (I have photos I will dig
out soon) and hibernacula bulldozed to the ground, the very next year or
immediately afterwards these areas are devoid of life never to return to
the healthy numbers”

He was
backed up in this by another observation from armata:“At Studland in Dorset a few years back I just happened to be present
when a contractor had uprooted a large gorse bush - dangling underneath
were a bunch of slow worms and several adders - I pointed this out, but
the contractor just smiled and dumped the bush with the rest of the
spoils. Conservation at work folks. If you think that is acceptable then
all you Wildlife Trusts, National Trust and Natural England, please raise
your hands, so we all know where we stand”

It would be
interesting to see how many would put their hands up, after it was pointed
out on the thread that bulldozing a hibernaculum and killing reptiles was
an offence under Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981 (8)
leading one contributor to wonder how it was that the Wildlife Trusts,
National Trust and Natural England were able to get away with it when a
building developer would undoubtedly be prosecuted. In contrast to the
behaviour of these "conservation" organisations, Bovis Homes recently
agreed to co-operate with the translocation of slow worms identified in an
ecological site survey before continuing with development (9).

The constant dirty war of "nature
conservation"

This is the
constant dirty war that is fought by the conservation industry in their
chosen need to undo the choices that wild nature makes in regenerating a
natural landscape cover. It is a credo within the conservation industry
that this natural habitat restoration of scrubby growth and trees is of
little value when compared to the species counting they contend will be
maximised from their re-opening of the landscape. While heathland has been
the major battleground for them with wild nature, the drive to restore
open habitats pretty much covers every type of landscape in Britain. Thus
I have written before about the protest at the tree and scrub clearance at Harting Down,
a chalkland landscape where the National Trust is imposing a particularly
obtuse view of nature conservation (see
Harting Down -
obsession with conserving man-made landscapes (10)). As with heathland sites such as
Bickerton Hill in Cheshire, and Swineholes Wood in Staffordshire, it is
patently obvious that the landscape at Harting has a variety of habitat
that includes scrubby growth and a substantial area of established trees, but that the
conservation orthodoxy – and its notification as a SSSI for calcareous
grassland - has determined that it be managed as open habitat with the
requirement of as low
as only 5% of scattered trees (11). I don't think the protestors at Harting
Down are aware of this low limit for tree cover, and I am sure there would
be an absolute furore if the National Trust sought to comply with it.

I don’t
have to look far to find an example of objectors to restoring a different
type of open habitat. An article in late February in The Cumberland News reports the
alarm of residents to proposals by Natural England to clear oaks and pine
from woodland near Crosby-on-Eden (12). The oak and pine grow across White
Moss, a raised mire that has been drained and cut for peat at various
times. The ordinance survey map shows woodland on the southern and eastern
edge of White Moss representing about a fifth of the area of the mire, but
a recent ariel photograph and the National Inventory of Woods and Trees show
that most of the mire is now covered with trees. Either way, woodland must have been there for many years
before 1986, the year that White Moss was notified as a SSSI. In spite of
this, none of the
units of the SSSI were notified for woodland, only as lowland bog and a
small area of dwarf shrub heath (13).

Natural England
had scrub cleared off the mire in 2001 and 2002, giving rise to what they
describe as an "impressive" recovery in mire groundcover
(13). In that condition report from 2004, it was noted that "a
decision will be taken shortly as to how many of the licensable trees will
need to come off".
This was a reference to the fact that a felling license would
be required for the tree removal, when it wasn't
for the scrub clearance. Five years on, and Natural England now want 45 oaks
cut down, some of which could be
150 years old, and 727 Scots pines, the latter being a home for red
squirrels, an increasing rarity in England (and for a similar threat to
red squirrels, see Threestoneburn
Forest - a lost opportunity for a new wildwood (14)).
It is not just the loss of red squirrels that is upsetting James
Bainbridge, a Carlisle City councillor for the area (12):“The proposals ignore the benefits that having Scots pine on the site
have brought to the diversity of the area. White Moss is home to roe deer
and red squirrels. The plans to fell the trees risks the scattering of
those species”

Fellow
councillor Ray Bloxham agrees, but added the all too familiar infuriation:”I’m fed up with people in authority doing things without bothering to
consult. They make decisions without consulting local people or telling
them why”

Susan
Clark, a spokeswoman for Natural England, gave the game away when she
defended the proposals by reference to the pressures from the Public Service Agreement target
for the favourable condition of SSSIs by 2010. She claimed that White Moss
was too small to be a refuge for red squirrels, referring to them as a
transient population, and that:“Restoration involves the removal of trees, which are causing the bog
to dry out, followed by blocking ditches to hold rainwater on the bog
surface and prevent rapid run-off after rainfall events”

This
got short shrift in a letter published in response by Gordon Little from nearby Scaleby, who questioned the logic of the proposals, fearing the constant
saturation of the denuded mire would lead to rapid run-off (15):”To block up the drains and raise the water level on this area will not
only displace the deer, red squirrels, adders, etc but result in a
semi-sterile swamp with no extra water-holding capability to relieve the
flooding which is becoming a hazard in this and many other parts of the
country”

Gordon believed that
first hand, local experience showed the red squirrel population to be more
than a transient population, and pointed to the natural benefits already
there that the mix of current landscape cover on White Moss afforded. He
saw it as “nothing more than national vandalism” for the proposals
to go ahead. The Brampton Red Squirrel Group, a member in Cumbria of
Northern Red Squirrels, is also entirely underwhelmed with the priority
that Natural England gives to red squirrels. Their view is reported in a
meeting a few weeks earlier in February of the Stanwix Rural Parish
Council in which the felling application by Natural England was considered
(16).

The parish council
concluded that the number of trees to be felled was too large, and that
White Moss is an established habitat for red squirrels, deer, owls, and
other flora and fauna such that it would be a breach of its own statutes
and regulations if Natural England went ahead. As tellingly, they noted
that there is no woodland of a similar size in the area, but that there
was an actively growing raised mire already at Scaleby Moss SSSI, only 2.5
miles away from White Moss. The parish council also heard the views from
representatives of the nearby Irthington Parish Council, and it
was resolved that the two parish councils would object to the felling
identified in Application 010/142/08-09 and
“formally request that Natural England and, or, the Forestry Commission
hold a public meeting”

The discontent rumbles
on, now reaching the level of a meeting of the Carlisle City Council
Executive on 14 April, where information tabled on the objections from
Irthington and Stanix Rural
Parish Councils will be considered (Agenda item A17 – see (17)). The
information note from the parish councils gives a summary of their earlier
meeting, but then has a remarkable critique of the felling proposals in
relation to the history of the site, the recent history of management and
the condition reports of the individual units of White Moss SSSI, and the
context of mire restoration in relation to other locations nearby (16).
Their conclusion is that since the majority of White Moss is in a
recovering condition, then there would be no justification for the scale
of the felling proposed. Moreover, that it would only need the blocking of
a drain in one unit, and the removal of the
small area of pine in
another, to achieve a recovering condition in White Moss as a whole. Their
recommendation to Natural England is that they should instead concentrate
their efforts at the much larger mire of nearby
Scaleby Moss SSSI, where condition reports indicate the mire there to be
in a deteriorating condition.

James Bainbridge, a
councillor for the City Council ward that covers White Moss has formally
submitted written observations to the Executive in support of the
information brief from the parish councils (18). In a devastating
indictment, he notes the lack of consultation by Natural England, and
reveals that residents only became aware of the proposed felling when
Cumbria County Council took it upon itself to open up consultation by
circulating the details that it had received. In an effort to
forestall some of the felling, Cllr Bainbridge calls on the Executive to
consider Tree Preservation Orders being made for the oaks on White Moss.
(See the Addendum below for the decisions made during the meeting of the
Executive Committee of Carlisle City Council).

A
felling license is required

The fact that Natural England had to
apply for a felling license for the works at White Moss
paradoxically takes the decision
to restore open habitat out of the hands of the
conservation industry, and gives authority
instead to the Forestry Commission. I have written before about the
Environmental Impact Assessment (Forestry) Regulations 1999 whereby the
Forestry Commission has to take into account the environmental impact of
felling work where
there is no intention of any replanting, before it can issue a felling license (see
High price for
heath - Loxley and Wadsley Commons (19)
and Threestoneburn
Forest - a lost opportunity for a new wildwood (14)) but this requirement is only
triggered if the area for deforestation is above a threshold of one
hectare (no threshold exists for SSSIs in the exemption
criteria). This anyway seems to be a pretty coarse
way of exempting consideration of significant environmental impact when it is
unrelated to the ecological functioning of a site. Does nothing happen on
deforestation sites of less than one hectare that would be disrupted by
the tree felling? The felling application at White Moss
specified an area of 12.23ha, and thus it should have been considered by
the Forestry Commission whether consent for the
application would need to be accompanied by an Environmental Impact
Statement. Considering the
substantial extent of the work, the short timescale in which it would be
carried out, the disruption to the existing flora and fauna, and that the
landowner adjacent to White Moss had not been consulted, but had raised
concerns about access over his property for contractor’s plant (16) then
it is surprising that the Forestry Commission
shows no evidence yet that it requires an Environmental Impact Statement for the felling license
application for White Moss.

Even if a requirement
was put on Natural England for an Environmental Impact Assessment to be carried out at White Moss,
the decision on whether there will be an adverse environmental impact is based on some pretty
uninspiring criteria given in a Schedule to the regulations (20). It was
perhaps the lack of clarity of these criteria and their irrelevance to
contemporary issues such as the contention at deforestation for
restoration of open habitat, that it was addressed in the consultation in
2006 on a new woodland strategy for England. A question was asked as to
whether restoring open habitats by deforestation should be a national
priority where this makes a significant contribution to UK Biodiversity Action Plan targets. As
you would expect, I rejected this in my response, and I pointed out that
many conservation projects are still being carried out independently of
landscape considerations, such as all the trees being removed from
heathland or grassland with no attempt to create a mosaic of natural
vegetation (see
A response to the consultation on England's Forestry Strategy (21)).

The ensuing
new strategy for England’s Trees, Woods and Forests launched in 2007 was
resoundingly uninspiring in many ways (see my
commentary
on the strategy (22)) but there was a commitment to put some effort into a
decision process for felling to restore open habitats, although the
wording was particularly loaded (23):”develop a clear rationale to guide removal of inappropriate
plantations and woodland for the purpose of restoring key BAP habitats
(e.g. lowland heathland and upland bog), where the benefits of doing so
outweigh the environmental and social costs”

I’ve been
watching the development of this policy by the Forestry Commission since
early October last year (24). The timescale has slipped over the months, but the
usual “stakeholder workshop” of conservation professionals is reported; a
very useful summary of policy evidence was posted (25) and a consultation
on the policy options was eventually launched a couple of weeks ago (26).
The consultation document (27) recognizes that the restoration
of open habitats from woods and forests is driven by the England
Biodiversity Strategy, but that these woods and forests already deliver a
range of public benefits and goods so that many people do not like
to see them being removed. Another important point made in the proposals,
often overlooked when Government ends up always footing the bill
(as at Ash Ranges - see above) is that
open habitats are usually more costly to manage than woods and forests.
The aim with this policy is thus to enable effective decision making about
when it is right to remove woods and forests on potential open habitat and
when it is right to retain them. The hope is that this will make sure that
we have landscapes that deliver more public benefits overall, and a
process of change if approved that is supported by most people.

The support of people is
given significant emphasis in the policy consultation, and it is likely
that the decision process will seek evidence that there has been high
quality local engagement before deforestation proposals will be
considered. As the document rightly says:”Participation is not simply about consulting on minor modifications to
already developed proposals or about giving information to the local
community in order to try and persuade them the proposals are justified”

If only this attitude
had prevailed over the last ten years during which the tensions with the
conservation industry have risen to the level of anger. In reality, we
should have had this policy developed many years ago,
at the same time that the BAP
targets for restoration of open landscapes were being set.
There were people like Peter Marren, writing in 1999, who foresaw the damage
that would ensue (28):”There
is a new concern, which is evidently widely felt though seldom expressed
publicly: that the envisaged level of intervention in the BAP may in some
cases come to threaten the concept of wildness itself”

There is a
presumption in the proposals against removal of
‘mature native woodland’. It is defined as sites currently composed
of native broadleaves that have been wooded for at least 80 years.
This seems very stringent in relation to some of
the contentious heathland examples, especially since
Scots pine is very much in the scene, but it would seem to be an argument
against deforestation at White Moss where 150-year old
oak are for the chop. Moreover, there is a commitment
amongst the policy options to ensure that the deforestation does not lead
to an overall drop in national woodland coverage, inadequately low as it
is already. It is a sad fact that the potential rate of deforestation for
open space habitat as represented in the BAP targets has the potential to
exceed the current derisory rate of woodland creation in England (see
Woodland creation - in need of strategic direction and larger scale
(29)) and there is an estimate in the proposals that this could be the
case if clearance for open habitat restoration were to approach or exceed
1,100 ha each year. There is also a proposal to seek compensatory
planting to reduce some of the potential
negative impacts from woodland removal. A range of ways in which this
could be applied are given, and include imposing a condition as part of
accepting woodland removal; seeking twinning between deforestation and
woodland creation projects; or just encouraging applicants to do the right
thing. I should note that one of the participants at the stakeholder
meeting asked the question during the plenary that if open habitats
are created in England, does it count if trees are planted in Scotland?
And you wonder why the ordinary public is disdainful of the conservation
industry.

I intend to respond in
detail to this policy consultation, but there is an aspect that especially
caught my attention. For the first time ever, I have seen information
on Common Standards Monitoringpresented in a way that reveals the frightening
extent of control over landscape
cover in open habitats that the system of SSSIs exerts (see Table 6 in the summary of policy evidence
(25)).
Grouped together are the percentages for maximum tree cover allowed for favourable condition in the range of open habitats covered by SSSIs. It
starts at a low of 5% of scattered trees for
most meadow, grassland and lowland bog habitats; rises to 10% for fens,
lowland (wet) and upland heath, and upland bog; and only reaches 15% for
dry lowland heath. I have described the implications of
this process
of maintaining land in a prescribed stasis as a "McDonaldising"
of our countryside (see
Swineholes
Wood - 'Too many trees being cut down' (30). I have
also noted above (and many times before, such as
in (1)) that there would be a public outcry if
these standards were rigidly applied as many locations notified for open
habitats have existing tree covers far exceeding these limits.
Consider how the residents around White Moss will react if the required
upper limit of 5% tree cover (10% at the margins) on lowland bog were to
be enforced there.

The proposals accept
the limits as an unchallengeable reality for SSSIs, but then it is questioned
whether a more flexible and dynamic
approach should be taken for restoration of open
habitats outside of SSSIs. It argues that in this dynamic approach, a
landscape cover of about 30%
permanent woodland, 30% permanent open habitat and 30% temporary open
space or woodland, could deliver so much more in terms of landscape
connectivity, ecological process and resilience. I noted this myself for
Harting Down (10) and I believe it is vital that our conservation thinking
develops in this way, especially if it leads to a much needed
questioning of the basis of the SSSI system. Only then will we be able to live up to one of the
key elements of the proposals “to treat woodland and open habitats as
potentially mutually beneficial habitats”. It would certainly provide
better protection for the homes of our adders, grass snakes,
common lizards and slow-worms on heathland sites, and it would give much
needed support to the many local populations, like that around White Moss,
who have genuine reasons for objecting to the destruction that is caused
by the unthinking restoration of open habitats.

The Executive of Carlisle City Council
resolved at their meeting on the 14 April 2009 to write to the Forestry
Commission and Natural England, expressing their
concern at the proposals to fell trees at White Moss (31). Members of the
Executive considered the information against the proposal from Stanwix
Rural and Irthington Parish Councils, and also heard from the Head of
Planning and Housing Services that the City Council through its officers
had itself, when consulted in January, raised concerns that the felling of
the trees should be phased and replacements planted elsewhere.The Executive were also concerned at the lack of consultation with
the Parish Councils and the general public, noting that the County Council
had left little time for Parishes to consider a response. The Executive
concluded that the felling would cause disruption to the wildlife and
fauna such as the Red Squirrel and Roe Deer.

The local press was quick to report the
outcome of the Executive meeting, drawing forward a commitment from
Natural England to hold a joint public meeting with the Forestry
Commission in May about the plan, and hire an independent expert to
discover whether White Moss is a refuge for red squirrel (32). You would
have thought that they would have done this in the first place, before
making the felling application. It is likely to be a fiery meeting in
which the defence of the felling proposal by Susan Clark of Natural
England by hiding behind the SSSI designation – “We have a statutory duty
to restore that site” – will get short shrift. City councillor Ray
Bloxham, who lives in Irthington, and is going to pursue having tree
preservation orders placed on the pines and oak at the White Moss, has
been getting local feedback:“People feel very strongly. I’ve had between 20 and 30 people ring me
about this. They’re telling me they have seen these trees ever since they
were kids and they should not be removed”

John Harris, chairman of Irthington
Parish Council, goes to the heart of the issue when he says:“Those Scots pine trees have been there since long before the area was
designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The trees support
a population of red squirrels. Red squirrels are endangered, and people in
these parts are rather shocked that Natural England had taken such a
high-handed attitude towards an environment which has been there for so
long. It just seems crazy. I believe that people will fight this plan”

It is this point – that notification of the
mire occurred when there was already a considerable presence of trees –
that is a key issue in many of the disputed management programs all over
England. There is no natural justice in the situation that Natural England
and its predecessors can have condemned what is often naturally
regenerated woodland in such an arbitrary way. It has made a mockery of
their notification system for SSSI, and pretty much discredits the Common
Standards Monitoring guidance for the condition of SSSIs that was
implemented across Great Britain in 1999 (33). The latter is described as
a means of “defining the state of the site that is required and
identifying the need for any further conservation management action” but
it is in effect a retrospective imposition of a notional ideal composition
of vegetative components. It is a lumpen mentality that seeks to defend
it, and hide behind it when, to many, it seems Natural England just makes
things up as they go along. It is time that it is openly challenged.

I would also strongly question why the
Forestry Commission did not, on receipt of the felling license
application, require Natural England to go through the process of
compiling an Environmental Impact Statement that is then submitted before
the felling application could be considered (see above). It begs the
question of whether Natural England filled in a Determination Enquiry form
for Environmental Impact Assessment. While the threshold for this is one
hectare for non-sensitive land areas (see above) all felling on SSSIs
irrespective of felling area have to be assessed for whether an
Environmental Impact Assessment is required (34). It seems to me that
there are legitimate concerns at the environmental impact of the proposed
felling in terms of the short timescale, access for heavy machinery, and
the substantial impact on the existing wild nature. Thus it seems puzzling
that if Natural England did fill in a Determination Enquiry form, that the
Forestry Commission were of the opinion that an Environmental Impact
Statement was not required. Having to undertake the process of compiling
an Environmental Impact Statementwould force
Natural England to publicise widely their intentions for White Moss, and
work closely with local people to discuss and agree the significant issues
of concern that must be addressed by Natural England in their preparation
of the Statement. On receipt of the Statement,
the Forestry Commission can grant consent but with specific conditions, or
refuse consent altogether. I would suggest that this requirement on
Natural England for an Environmental Impact Statement needs to be a
minimum required outcome of the May meeting.

Sadly, experience tells me that I can make a
prediction that the report from the “independent expert” will likely
dismiss White Moss as a refuge for red squirrels. It will need
representatives of the Brampton Red Squirrel Group to interpret, as the
report may go into conifer cone density, cone nutrient content, number of
“squirrellled” cones, age range of conifers, diversity of tree species,
proximity of grey squirrels and the likelihood of transfer of Squirrelpox
virus, and the long-term capacity of the site to support a red squirrel
population versus the ability of the existing population to translocate
elsewhere (see
Threestoneburn Forest - a lost opportunity for a new wildwood (14)).
The one key piece of evidence missing in the report will be the opinion of
the red squirrels themselves that seem to have made White Moss a home.

Its not normally a good
idea to leave a consultation response to the last minute before the
closing date, but it is fortunate that I did with my response to the
consultation on Restoring
and expanding open habitats from woods and forests in England.
The Forestry Commission added two further
evidence documents only three weeks before the closing date, and very
likely after many organisations and individuals had already replied.

The new evidence document
on the impact of a deforestation policy on the confidence of the timber sector in
England had little of direct interest for me (35) but the second new
evidence document had some very revealing information. This document
contained a survey of the potential for open habitat restoration on the
publicly-owned, Forestry Commission estate. The
report looked at the social restraints on open habitat restoration
(Section 6 in (36)) and concedes that a strong local response usually
influences the emerging Forest Design Plan. If only that was the case for
deforestation proposals by the conservation industry on other publicly
owned land, such as the heathland, chalkland and mire commons that cause
such public contention. The authors go on to forecast the "social
acceptability" of the bulk of the potential sites identified on the FC
estate, and it is no surprise to me that only 4.4% of the potential
lowland heath area was considered to be where there would be little or no
opposition to open habitat restoration.

I
argued in my consultation response that
proposals by the conservation industry for deforestation to restore open
habitats take for granted that these habitats will be successfully
restored. As many local communities observe, this is often specious.
Numerous examples of supposed heathland restoration result in only acid
grassland communities. Thus it
should not be the case that just because local opposition may not be
strong that rigor should not be required of all deforestation proposals.
This would imply that deforestation in a hopeless cause is somehow more
acceptable if it is out of sight, or that local people have little
interest in the location. I stressed that the emphasis should be on the
proposer to fully explore the impact and outcome of their proposals, and
to do this with the local community. You can read my full consultation
response here.

The public
meeting that Natural England had promised with local people finally took
place on 1 July when about 30 turned up to hear Deborah Rusbridge, in
place of the incredulous Susan Clark, announce that the felling
application had been withdrawn. Rushbridge admitted that the application
process had been badly handled by NE (37):“It has been handled appallingly. Tonight is partly about trying to
rebuild some trust. We have listened and learned from the previous
application, and we are not going to do that again”

Rusbridge
said that there were no immediate plans to submit a new application, but
then outlined plans for a survey of the area over the next two years,
leading people at the meeting to believe that it was only a matter of time
before a new application would be submitted. Was it a slip of the tongue
when Rushbridge said “previous” application?

James
Bainbridge, Carlisle City Cllr for Stanwix Rural, was at the meeting and
he tells me that Rushbridge seemed genuinely unhappy about had happened.
He confirmed that very little (if any) study work had been carried out by
NE on White Moss before the felling application. Equally concerning is
that the Church Commission, which owns much of the land, does not appear
to have been consulted either. James remarked on how fortunate events had
unfolded, alerting local people to the potential threat to White Moss:“But for one office worker deciding to send an email, we could have all
missed the boat, and may have lost a much valued piece of land. In two years should this
come back we will have a better knowledge of the area, and will not be
caught by the element of surprise”

Instead of
having to talk their way out of their own disasters, NE staff in the NW
region should take note of the public commitment that they have made about
their methods of working. In the NW regional section of the NE website, it
has that the NW team will take an evidence-based, long-term approach to
their responsibilities that demonstrates clear benefits from their
interventions in land management. It then says (38):“This will require effective cross-sector working and strong public
engagement to deliver integrated actions in a transparent manner”

Be sure that
the local people living around White Moss will hold them to this.